AUSTIN, Texas — U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, who represents Austin, held a classified briefing for the U.S. House of Representatives Friday on the situation in Afghanistan. He told KVUE in an interview that it is not likely that all Americans will be evacuated by the end of the month.
“You have our troops winding down, evacuating and then you got our joint special operations command going out and bringing Americans to the airport by air to get them out of the country,” McCaul said. “And that's got to happen in five days, that's a tall order, and by many experts I talk to, almost an impossible order to fulfill.”
U.S. evacuation efforts in Kabul are set to end on Tuesday, Aug. 31. However, McCaul said he has heard that some members of the service are planning to go back to Afghanistan to make sure no American is left behind.
“I want to make sure that every American gets out, that we have no man left behind, no woman left behind,” McCaul said. “That is our goal right now.”
This comes after at least 60 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops were killed in a bombing at the Kabul airport Thursday. A group known as Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS K, is being blamed for the attack.
“This has been the worst killing of our service members in 10 years,” McCaul said.
McCaul told KVUE’s Ashley Goudeau on Texas This Week that he was concerned about Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance in Afghanistan. He said the U.S. has moved its ISR operations to the airport and was briefed on the ISIS K threat.
“It’s so chaotic, Ashley, at this airport that literally we had to close it down after the attack. It still hasn’t reopened. This is what happens when you put your faith and trust in the Taliban,” he said
McCaul said moving forward, the U.S. needs to have a counter-terrorism mission with “the intelligence capability to respond to any future threats to the homeland.”
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